Yesterday, contextual ad network and technology company Vibrant Media announced the acquisition of in-image ad network Image Space Media (ISM). Long-rumored as a candidate for an IPO, Vibrant Media appears to be extending its case for the importance in online advertising of placement and context. From the release, "The acquisition of ISM will enhance the delivery of Vibrant Image, a product that identifies static images within brand-safe content across the Web and embeds small overlays within them at the bottom of the image." Read more. ISM had raised around $3 million according to CrunchBase. Was ISM another victim of audience-based buying? Yet, Vibrant powers on.

Google Display, Aegis ATD

In The Wall Street Journal, Amir Efrati reviews Google's surge into the world of display advertising and provides an anecdote on just how aggressive Google has been with agencies and their trading desk initiatives such as Aegis' iProspect which helps guide Aegis ATD initiatves. Efrati writes, "Google assigned an employee to iProspect's Boston office. (...) Another Google worker set up shop inside iProspect's San Francisco office a year ago, working there at least twice a week, he added." Read more (subscription). Also, AMNET is the name for the Aegis ATD which according to this job on the AdExchanger.com job board is beginning to crank up in the U.S. View the LinkedIn Group, too... you know you want to.

Retarget Tablets Now!

Adobe has released a new study which it says shows tablet visitors (i.e. iPad users) "spent more per purchase than visitors using smartphones or traditional desktops and laptops, suggesting that tablet visitors were the most valuable online customers in 2011." Tablet-ers spent 54% more than other device channels says Adobe.... Are you segmenting your audience according to device? If you're a publisher, you're fattening those tablet CPMs ASAP - if you have scale that makes it worth it. Read the release. And, download the study's findings. The "lean back" world of the tablet is more prone to shopping.

For Your PowerPoint

eMarketer has issued its latest predictions for online ad spend over the next few years. The keyword is "Billions," according to eMarketer. From the press release: "US online advertising spending, which grew 23% to $32.03 billion in 2011, is expected to grow an additional 23.3% to $39.5 billion this year—pushing it ahead of total spending on print newspapers and magazines." Get the graphic for 2012 and beyond.

Agencies And The DSP In China

China-based ad platform AdChina and its VP of Marketing, Jing Pan, offers up its "2012 Digital Media Scene Report" in the hopes of providing some insight to its clients (and potential clients) on the opportunity in the Chinese market as well AdChina's own offering. Led by former Ebay-er Alan Yan, AdChina claims to be active in the agency holding company world when it comes to DSP services. From the report: "4 of the top 6 international 4As media agencies in China adopted AdChina DSP to manage their advertising operations in the past 2 years. We estimate significant growth in China’s DSP business in 2012." Download it (PPT, 6.5 MB). Sales pitch aside, if you're looking for aggregated stats for online advertising in Chinese market, the deck is worth a look.

Verify This

Digiday's Mike Shields looks at comScore's announcement of its vGRP product and the integration of AdXpose. In speaking with comScore CEO Magid Abraham, Shields sees more, "...under the surface, it seemed clear that ComScore is looking to shove aside verification companies like DoubleVerify, view monitoring startups like RealVu, tag management vendors like Tagman and perhaps even brand-researcher firms like Dynamic Logic." Read more.

It's Mobile Not Display

Kamal Kaur, VP of Mobile & Display at social ad tech company RadiumOne, says, "...not many among my professional peers (in the world of online display) have reacted to this change. The online display industry has matured and become a lot more complex than the simple days of publishers, buyers and sellers." It's time for... mobile, which appears to be a key, strategic direction for RadiumOne. Read more.

Advertising Facebook

In his first post since August, Joe Mele of Razorfish is thinking about Facebook, brands and CPMs. He thinks brands need to get their Facebook act together, "Most of the time brands are doing very little to nurture real, meaningful, business changing, customer-centric conversations with their fans. And if the final calculus of what makes marketing on Facebook valuable is the number of fans you have or the cheap CPM you were able to negotiate, then I fear we have missed the point entirely." Read what is the point.

AI For Ads

Positioning his company, in part, as "Artifical Intelligence for Advertising," MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki puts his TV game face on for the Fox Business Channel and tells the MediaMath and data-driven, digital ads story. See it now.